Foolish Mortal
by BohemianTwinkle
Summary: and he will always go on painfully, pointlessly loving her...


**Author's Note: **What is this fic? I DON'T EVEN KNOW! it's not even good, and I really only wanted to say the last paragraph, but that wouldn't do because no one would know what I was on about so I had to write the monstrosity that PROCEEDS the last paragraph. Bollocks. Oh and amazing fact of the day: this piece was inspired by an Elvis song - imagine that, I'm so weird. I just have to take things and give them sad meanings.

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_Love me tender,_

She was amazing. Under the fantastical illusion of the sequin studded lights of the Sparkling Diamond, the costumes and the characterization. Behind the gold plated mask of the irresistible seductress, the dresses and the pale porcelain skin. She was made of magic, and perhaps she wasn't real at all but something conjured up by God to live amongst the troubled, unfaithful mortals for a while.

She made a cold hearted, cruel man cry.

I wonder every so often, in these after days, whether he actually did truly love her – the real evil Maharaja, with his contracts and his manservant, his possessiveness and violent revenges. He looked at her that first night in the Elephant like Christian did - as one who has beheld beauty that felt like heaven had landed on earth before them. Watching through the opening, dangling from above, I saw his mouth fall open and his arms lose all feeling. I wonder if he fell in love with her right there.

Stranger things have happened.

I think we were scripted to hate him, like Christian penned the play's Maharajah to be hated – the wealthy and their money and greed are never liked by the penniless. But for a moment I would've sworn Christian and The Duke were brought down to the same level as each other –whatever gentlemanly manners they were taught as boys and whatever coloured jealous streaks they had was all there was as they stood in the presence of her. They both had things she desired; Christian was just a boy with all the freedom in the world and more love than Cupid to give whilst The Duke was so wealthy his pockets were stitched with gold and the material world was his to plunder, a place in high society and the world.

Innocence versus experience.

He gave her a whole new dressing room; he took her on outings she'd never had the privilege of – hot air ballooning, picnicking, a day on the water in their own private boat – and he gave it all without thinking of anything but her opinion of him, before the possessiveness and jealousy reared its head. Before Nini opened her mouth and opened up his eyes to reality, he wanted her to _like_ him. He'd never needed to want anyone to like him before – he'd never loved before – he'd never needed anyone to like him in the first place, he had his money, his houses, his servants, his connections in the world and most of all, his power. Yet he gave her everything and he believed that she loved him in return.

When he found out she didn't, we all saw how much of a monster he really was. His possessiveness, his jealousy, his malice – relentlessness – came through the repulsive, stupid, plainly un-likeable man we all thought was all he was.

It just hits you, that feeling telling you, you just might lose.

It's terrible to lose; things, games, bets. He didn't like to lose, he never had before, and everything he had ever desired was promptly laid in his lap. When he saw that she never loved him, he was nevertheless determined to still have her as his own. In his own, selfish way, he fought for her right up to the end to the point where he would've shot everyone in the room to have her. Love's desperation, and when he saw her up on that stage with Christian, he cried, it wasn't from the hit in the face – but the breaking of his heart.

No one believes me; he was cold hearted and he'll die cold hearted, never thinking of her or any of his dealings at the Moulin again. But she made him love and she made him cry, inside his greedy body, behind a ribcage painted black with arrogance, he had a red heart that had fallen in love like any other person. He had become penniless for a while – thinking only of her and not of his money and wealth. From that night he saw her, he loved her and no matter how terrible a person he was, how inhuman he went on to be, he would always be a foolish mortal who let himself fall recklessly in love and get his hidden heart broken. I'm sure, even though he will never return to Paris, wherever her goes he will carry a heart always bleeding and always thinking of her, he will always go on painfully, pointlessly loving her.

_For my darling, I love you  
__And I always will._


End file.
